The venue has been identified in principle to host the team camp for London 2012.

The rest of the British team will be based at the University of Bath.

ParalympicsGB have cleared the move to allow the swimmers to continue their longstanding relationship with Manchester, and the University of Bath indicated it remains happy to provide "whatever is needed" for the pre-2012 camps.

British Swimming chief executive David Sparkes said: "Manchester is one of our regular training centres for our disability swimmers and its support for them through events like the BT Paralympic World Cup means it was clearly the right choice for us.

"The support we receive from the city and the pool staff is immense and this will ensure the team has the ideal preparation for the Games where we expect to meet our strongest challenge yet."

Manchester Aquatics Centre was purpose-built for the 2002 Commonwealth Games at a cost of £32 million ($51 million) and features two 50-metre swimming pools.

Manchester has been home to one of British disability swimming's high performance centres for many years and the partnership agreement with the city council is now being worked on to ensure Britain's swimmers have all they need for 2012.

National performance director John Atkinson believes Manchester will offer his team the optimum environment.

"Being based in Manchester in the lead-up to the Paralympic Games will give us great preparation in a world class venue and access to the support services from the EIS that we already access at the high performance centre at the Aquatics Centre," he said.

"We have worked with Manchester City Council for a number of years making sure our athletes have access to anything they could need in their training cycles and I believe this is a great opportunity to continue our already successful partnership."

Michael Amesbury, Manchester City Council's Executive member for Culture and Leisure, said: "It will be an honour to host the British Paralympic team camp, and their decision to be based here once again demonstrates that Manchester has world class sporting facilities.

"Along with the training camps for the Australian swim team and Brazilian Paralympic teams this is one more example of how Manchester is playing a leading role in preparations for the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics."

Paul Simpson, managing director of Visit Manchester, added: "We can provide the perfect base, and the fact that we have world class athletes training here provides a focus on both them and us in the run up to the Games.

"We look forward to welcoming the team and their supporters, as well as fans from across the world, and we wish them every success."

Britain's Paralympians will be looking to build on their fantastic success in the pool at the Beijing 2008 Games where they picked up 41 medals, 11 of which were gold.

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